Rising commodity prices have raised concerns about higher inflation prompting the Federal Reserve to aggressively raise interest rates.
Wall Street’s major indices fell in choppy trading Monday as rising tensions over the Russia-Ukraine conflict weighed on megacap stocks and Boeing shares plummeted after a 737-800 jet crashed in China.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it had summoned US Ambassador John Sullivan to tell him that President Joe Biden’s comments about his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had pushed bilateral ties to the brink of collapse.
Technology stocks and consumer discretionary fell the most after a solid rally last week. Megacap growth names Alphabet Inc, Amazon.com, Microsoft Corp and Meta Platforms fell 0.7 to 3.5%.
Boeing’s 5.7% slide weighed most on the blue-chip Dow after a 132-passenger China Eastern Airlines jet crashed in the mountains of southern China.
US-listed shares of China Eastern Airlines fell about 8.2%. Parts suppliers Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc and Hexcel Corp were down 5.6% and 1.1% respectively. Motor manufacturer General Electric Co also fell 0.9%.
“The key is to get the flight recorder and the black box and determine from there what happened, but until then it’s shoot first, ask questions later, and right now Boeing’s stock is taking it on the chin, said Thomas Hayes, chairman of Great Hill Capital in New York.
Meanwhile, oil prices rose nearly 7%, pushing energy stocks higher, while Brent crude climbed more than $114 a barrel as European Union countries considered joining the United States in a Russian oil embargo.
Rising commodity prices have raised concerns about higher inflation prompting the Federal Reserve to aggressively raise interest rates.
“Just keep your eye on oil and [Fed Chair] Powell, those are going to be the keys to today’s market,” Hayes said.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell will speak at the National Association for Business Economics Conference at 1200 ET (1600 GMT), while other policymakers were expected to speak throughout the week after the US central bank outlined a perilous rate hike path.
At 10:14 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 170.38 points, or 0.49%, at 34,584.55, the S&P 500 fell 13.53 points, or 0.30%, at 4,449.59 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 133.35 points, or 0.96%, to 13,760.49.
Global stocks started the week bleak as fighting raged in Ukraine and the Kremlin said the peace talks had not yet produced any major breakthroughs.
Hopes of a peace deal coupled with a widely expected rate hike by the Fed had boosted market sentiment last week, with Wall Street’s three major indices posting their biggest weekly percentage gains since early November 2020.
In individual shares, Alleghany Corp. rose 24.7% after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc closed a $11.6 billion deal to buy the owner of reinsurer TransRe. Berkshire shares added 2.3%.
Nielsen Holdings fell 7.2% when it turned down an unsolicited offer from a private equity consortium that valued the TV viewing company at $9.13 billion.
The number of declining issuances surpassed the avant-garde by a ratio of 1.18 to 1 on the NYSE and a ratio of 1.59 to 1 on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 35 new highs in 52 weeks and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 31 new highs and 22 new lows.
This post US equities: Wall Street lower due to tensions in Ukraine, Boeing crash
was original published at “https://www.financialexpress.com/market/us-stocks-wall-street-knocked-lower-by-ukraine-tensions-boeing-crash/2467133/”
